Howdy Duty!

Challenger Jana Duty has unseated incumbent John Bradley, garnering 55% of the vote.

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Early voting results are in for Williamson County, where the Republican primary race for District Attorney is arguably the one to watch.

Challenger Jana Duty has 53 percent of the vote compared to incumbent John Bradley’s 47 percent. Less than 700 votes separate the candidates. A little more than 1,500 votes were tallied in early voting.

Duty has made Bradley’s handling of the Michael Morton case a central plank of her campaign.

She told YNN last night: "The policies and procedures have to change because those procedures that was in place 25 years ago in the Michael Morton case, are still in place today,” Duty said. “We have to have an open discovery policy, we have to have fairness."

Morton was freed from jail after serving 25 years in a Texas prison, after being convicted of murdering his wife in 1987. It wasn’t until 2011 that DNA testing, proved the innocence he had maintained.

The Texas Tribune’s reporting on the race noted Morton’s “wrongful conviction is the central issue in the GOP primary fight between incumbent District Attorney John Bradley — who spent five years opposing DNA testing that ultimately exonerated Morton — and County Attorney Jana Duty.”

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The former Williamson County District Attorney who helped secure a 25-year sentence for Michael Morton for a crime he didn’t commit apologized today and suggested he has been wracked with guilt. Ken Anderson, now a Williamson County district judge, held a last minute press conference this afternoon.

“I don’t know how strong I can say this,” he said on a live stream of the news conference that we watched on KXAN’s website. “If there’s anybody who’s confused about whether I’m beating myself up and whether I’m absolutely sick about this case, you’re wrong, because I am.”

But Anderson stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing, adding that, “I’m apologizing for the system’s failure.”

GEORGETOWN — Judge Sid Harle said today he will recommend that Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson convene a court of inquiry to review a slew of evidence against former Williamson County prosecutor Ken Anderson and determine whether there is probable cause to press criminal charges of prosecutorial misconduct related to his work in 1987 to secure a wrongful murder conviction that sent Michael Morton to prison for life.

In addition to allowing a full public airing of the evidence, the Bexar County state district judge said the unique legal proceeding would allow Anderson, who is now a district judge, the opportunity to clear his name.

“The only method and venue I know of for that to occur and for Mr. Morton’s interests to be served” is a court of inquiry, Harle said.

Michael Morton's attorneys today presented a 138-page report that asked the court to investigate the lead prosecutor, Ken Anderson, who sent Morton to prison for nearly 25 years for the murder of his wife. Morton's attorneys said the State Bar of Texas and the state's judicial ethics commission should consider punishment against Anderson, who was the Williamson County District Attorney at the time, for prosecutorial misconduct during trial.